Steam & Excursion > Magma Arizona #7 is Spectacular!

Well, it is not Superior, AZ in 1965, but it is Superior in Rusk, TX in 2014 !

In the "stealth restoration" of 2014, Magma Arizona receives her identitiy back and struts her stuff on April 12, 2014. The copper on her smoke box is still not finished, nor quite right yet (but it will be!) but she looks wonderful, sounds wonderful and handles the Texas hills with ease!

Picture 1: Waiting in Rusk for the last of the passengers to board

Picture 2: Taking the first steps

Picture 3: Backing on to the Turntable in Maydelle

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Picture 4: Backing on to the Table

Picture 5: Turning on the Maydelle Table

Picture 6: Steve Butler CMO and Earl Knoob GM, wait to discharge happy children for the Easter Egg hunt

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Last but not least,

#7 disturbs the birds on a fine spring morning in East Texas

attacking the steepest grade on the TSRR

First: Fairchild Hill Westbound

Second: Fairchild Hill Eastbound

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That looks really good! Congratulations!

Steve Krause
Chillicothe, IL

CONGRATULATIONS! That's the way to do it. She is perfect, beautiful and historically accurate. I guess I'll have to come back down to Texas to ride and shoot all over again. Thank you for doing such a wonderful restoration.

Steve, Earl and all of the TSRR crew have done a great job, and the whole RR has taken a great deal of pride in their hard work.

It really does show!

Way to go Earl and crew! It's great to see these engines restored to their correct appearance. She is a great looking mike and you've done her proud.
I had never seen color shots of 7 and really didn't realize her smokebox front was copper colored. She's quite a showpiece.
Thank you.

I believe that the 7 looks and sounds better since Earl put his "correct" Bowler on! <lol> wag216

Great job getting #7 back and looking good - she's a beauty!

Steve Mitchell
http://www.yardgoatimages.com

Very nicely done... ...both engine and photography and video. Like the birds in the background.

Outstanding!

I can't wait to get up there next weekend.

Jason Rose
Spring, TX
Rio Grande Explorations

That's a great whistle for back in the woods. She speaks well.

I'm so proud of IPH and everything it does. Good job Earl, thanks again!

Posted from Android

She sounds and LOOKS great! You guys did a fantastic job on her.

i added black-white.

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Frisco1522 Wrote:
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> That's a great whistle for back in the woods. She
> speaks well.

She looks and sounds GREAT and I'm so GLAD that the "Circus Train" appearance of the steam locomotives (for ALL of them) is going by the WAYSIDE. All of them to be "Basic Black" except for the T&P 4-6-0 which will retain her authentic T&P "Russian Iron" and get back her T&P Number!!! God I wish that the axle-loadings of the T&P 610 were "just-so" for this route--with all of the new concrete trestles installed in the late 1980s and so--well--I've been assured that it would be "just over." But one could only dream. And to see the ex-TSRR No. 500 no longer with its darn GREEN boiler jacket which is all I've never known her in, restored as she is to be as the ATSF 1316 will be a SIGHT!!!

Originally this locomotive had a very SPINE-CHILLING whistle but which I THINK that the ATSF 1316 has had for awhile and will sport after she comes back into service. And there was a very old "part-time" hoghead that ran this loco in the late 1970s/early 1980s that had been a full-time shortline steam hogger that could blow that whistle in such a fashion as to make your hairs stand up on the back of your neck!!! (I'm sure he is long-deceased, as he was every bit of 80 years old back in 1980, God Bless Him).

But God Bless Ed Ellis and everything he's doing with this RR. I was originally apprehensive when this RR was "spun off" from state ownership, but, with the massive investment the State did to the entire infrastruture including new boilers for most of the steamers before being put into private hands--this one should be "good to go" for many decades to come!!! :-) Including the ex-TSRR No. 300 ex-US Army 2-8-0 which sat as the most DERELICT heap of scrap one could imagine for almost 20 years, now with new boiler and such--formerly the "Red Engine," but not to be ANY LONGER when she emerges as the BLACK Tremont & Gulf No. ???. And both of these that my late maternal Grandpa told me about whistling through Winnfield, LA (as this one photographed & with the video spent time as a Tremont & Gulf loco before going out to the Magma & Arizona). I sure didn't know she had a copper-colored smokebox on the M&A, either. But it looks good, and so long as historically correct--more power to them!!!

I know that you'll document the other engines as they come back online and into service!!! Thanks!!!

Loved the post. Congratulations on VOTD.
John

The 610 was mentioned above. Here she is asleep in the barn

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...I wonder what I was pointing at in the B&W pic........

On the second runby, I was trying to find the company notch for #7 - a high as she would run without going lame. Just as she comes into view I drop down one and she squares up. She's a good mill, with a fine voice.

Earlk Wrote:
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> ...I wonder what I was pointing at in the B&W
> pic........
>
> On the second runby, I was trying to find the
> company notch for #7 - a high as she would run
> without going lame. Just as she comes into view I
> drop down one and she squares up. She's a good
> mill, with a fine voice.


Earl, you look like you're saying "You get yer ass outta here with that camera" Haahahaha...

Cheers, Dave